FEATURES

“Natale con I tuoi, pasqua con chi vuoi!” (Christmas with the family, Easter with whoever you like).
This year 18 million Italians (7.2 million families) will go on holyday during the Easter weekend.
That means 30% of the population (34% last year) while 53% will stay at home and 17% are undecided. According to the survey of “Confesercenti” only 24% will go to hotels, touristic villages, camping, while the majority will visit relatives and friends or they will go to their own holiday house (22%).
Many others will try to save money with bed&breakfasts (10%), ”agriturismi” (10%) or a rented house (5%).
According to “Confesercenti”, Italians will spend 9,7 billion euro, about 500 Euro on average for a 3 days holiday. 78% of the interviewed won’t spend more than 750 euro but 8% are going to spend at least 1.500 euro.

The good news is that you can drive a relative’s or a friend’s car in Italy without being named on the insurance contract yourself.
As a matter of fact, in Italy the owner of a vehicle is obliged to stipulate a contract with an insurance company in order to cover the so called “Resonsabilità Civile Auto”. The RCA provides coverage for damage caused to other property or people while using a vehicle. The coverage is guaranteed even when the car is driven by other than the owner or the person who signed the contract.
Also in the UK The Road Traffic Act requires all motorists to be insured against their liability for injuries to others (including passengers) and for damage to other people’s property, but, unlike in Italy, the policy might only cover driving by specified people.
So for example in Italy all the members of a family and their friends with a driving licence can drive a family’s car, while in the UK this is only possible if the drivers are insured themselves.

If you are planning a holiday in Italy and you think you’ll need your car or your motorbike there, don’t worry because you can use your Great Britain licence for driving in other European Countries.
However, while the minimum age for driving a car in Great Britain is 17, individual member states may apply their own age restrictions for entitlements.
Anyway from 2013 a single European driving licence should replace the 110 different models currently in use through the European union.
At the present time, all valid UK driving licences should be accepted in Italy and you won’t need an international driving permit (IDP), a formal document issued by the Automobile Association (The AA) and Royal Automobile Club (RAC) to visitors to other countries. This document translates details of a driving licence into several languages, to make them understandable for foreign authorities.
In any case If you’ve got an old-style all-green the local authorities might not understand them, so either get them up-dated or take an International Driving Permit as well.

According to the saying “A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale”, “everything goes at Carnival time”, nobody could have ever imagined the polar temperatures that paralyzed Italy in the last two weeks.
Even though the cold put almost at risk the celebrations for the Carnival, at Viareggio, where one of the most popular Italian Carnivals is celebrated, 50 thousand people participated at the unique spectacle of the papier-mâché floats, which can reach 30 meters in height. If you missed the beginning, don’t worry because the events at Viareggio, and in many other parts of Italy will continue on the 19th, the 21st, the 26th of February and on the 3rd of March.

Conroversy rages following a comment of the Prime Minister Mario Monti about how boring a permanent job position can be. Even though the intention of the prime minister was to encourage young people to embrace a new job market, in a country where 30% of the younger generation is unemployed, his words couldn’t just be passed unnoticed. Unemployment and the instability due to temporary work are in fact at the moment major problems for Italy.

One of the main values of a community is mutual help! Sharing knowledge for cultural and practical purposes it’s not just useful in itself but it also helps to keep the community’s identity alive.
“Backhillonline”, the online magazine of the Anglo-Italian community would like to invite you to share your knowledge and life experiences with us!
Can you help with 2 recent enquiries trying to trace people and seeking historical information?

Can you spot an Italian purely on body language?
A nice video on Italian gestures can be found at this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0n4Vw6twKo or
for a more comprehensive list of gestures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHZwYObN264
Giulia Lombardo explains

“Il colpo della strega”, a very Italian ailment
My aunty knows everything about ailments. No, she is not a doctor. She is Italian! Her knowledge comes from years of personal, luckily most of the time hypochondriac, experience.
According to my dad she started talking about disease and having all sorts of medical check- ups when she was very young. Fortunately, despite her passion for diseases her health has always been really good.
I remember her keeping a picture of her operated foot in her bag and she had the habit of showing it after lunch. Once she even mentioned to have arthritis on the tip of her nose! Also her dog had all the medical check-ups available, even though she is a healthy happy dog.
Apart from the jokes on my aunty, Italians are quite obsessed with health problems.
Anyone who has lived in Italy or has Italian origins knows that the most popular subjects at a family lunch are food and diseases, not severe ones of course!

The traditional big Catholic Italian family with lots of children, leaving home only to marry someone, is a picture of the past.
The traditional Italian family has changed dramatically in the last decades. Marriage, divorce, the habit of living by themselves and the female role in the family are the main factors affected by those changes.
Italy has become one of the European countries with the lowest percentage of marriages celebrated every year. From the 70’s to now the number of marriages has decreased by a half. Moreover, separations and divorces are becoming more popular (apparently almost 4 marriages out of ten end up in court).